In Which We Have The Appeal of British Science Fiction Explained To Us

Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex And Time Travel But Were Afraid To Ask

by MARCO SPARKS

I do watch a lot of television science fiction, and it is a particularly sexless world. With a lot of the material from America, I think gay, lesbian and bisexual characters are massively underrepresented, especially in science fiction, and I'm just not prepared to put up with that. It's a very macho, testosterone-driven genre on the whole, very much written by straight men. I think Torchwood possibly has television's first bisexual male hero, with a very fluid sexuality for the rest of the cast as well. We're a beacon in the darkness.

– Russell T. Davies on his show, Torchwood

Time rifts, alien sex monsters, and creatures from beyond the stars. Contacting and threatening the people of Earth through the creepy chanting of every single child on the planet at the exact same time. Throw in a pterodactyl, a blowfish in Victorian garb, and a bisexual Han Solo with has a long sordid past that mostly occurs in the future and the British science fiction show Torchwood, whose truncated third season airs on BBC America this week as a five night miniseries event called “Children Of Earth,” may just have everything. But let’s start earlier…

It actually starts with Doctor Who, probably the greatest British TV show ever, and certainly the longest running science fiction television show ever. It starts with the Doctor, the title character, just “The Doctor,” a 900 year old alien from a race called Timelords who travels time and space fighting aliens, solving problems, saving the universe, and righting wrongs. He does it in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), which can look like anything on the outside (it’s much, much bigger on the inside) but is stuck in the form of a blue 1950s police box.

The Doctor, who is equal parts adventurer, tourist, and museum curator of all creation, is a man who gets bored easily, and lonely very, very easily. He likes to pick up human companions to travel with him, to give someone to show off to.

The Doctor is a classic in the mold of the British pacifist science hero. He spent his first 30 or so years fighting rubber suited monsters and villains that looked like trash cans shot on grainy video, and was played by ugly men with very bad, very English teeth. Oh yeah, forgot to mention: Whenever the character is mortally wounded, he can “regenerate,” i.e. change every cell in his body, thus changing his appearance and his personality. Perfect when it’s time to bring in a new actor.

old/current doctor

Then, in the 90s, the character went away. Sure, they tried to resurrect, er, “regenerate” stateside with a so so Fox TV movie, but come on, it’s Fox, so that was never going to work. But mid-2000s, the show returned in the UK, rejuvenated by Russell T. Davies, the creator of the original British Queer As Folk and a fan of Doctor Who since childhood.

The show now had real writers churning out smart, original science fiction, and was sleek on a special effects budget more befitting it. And the acting talent showed up: Davies cast Christopher Eccleston, such a brilliant force in the earlier Danny Boyle movies (now slumming it in dreck like Heroes and G.I. Joe), as the new incarnation (the ninth) of the Doctor, then regenerating into David Tennant’s uber geek mascot Tenth Doctor (who will soon be vacating the role for Matt Smith’s Flock Of Seagulls-do Doctor).

new upcoming doctor, with hot companion

Eccleston’s companion was former pop star and future call girl Billie Piper, and after a few episodes, they were joined in the TARDIS by the matinee idol good looks of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, former “time agent” from the 51st century and current conman grifter running scrams and breaking hearts across time and space.

Doctor Who was a show of so many things, primarily: Fun, whimsy, adventure, intrigue, mystery, terror (best watched from behind the couch at times), and smart science fiction. But there’s always one thing it lacked: Romance. Or, more accurately, sex. Though it’s made for adults, the brilliance of the show is that it’s actually for kids.

Thus the barrier breaking entrance of Barrowman’s Harkness, who was not only an American on a British show (think: a much more dashing Tom Cruise, should he exit the closet and could sing), and someone willing to kill the bad guys (something the Doctor will never allow himself to do), but he’s from a future where humanity is a little more flexible. In other words: He swings both ways, kids!

So, of course, he couldn’t stay in the TARDIS for long. But the character was too popular with people to just disappear into time and space. Hence, the spinoff, Torchwood.

The title, which is the name of the English organization set up by Queen Victoria to stop alien threats to Her Majesty’s kingdom (and to hunt down and kill the Doctor), started both as the arc word for the new series’ second season – the show, under Davies’ command, uses arc words to serve both as chilling foreshadowing at times and to remind you that there is ongoing storyline floating over “monster of the week” episodes – and as the original code name (Torchwood being an anagram for Doctor Who) for the new series’ production.

The show features Captain Jack grounded in our time, still wearing his circa-World War II military fetish garb, and his team of experts taking on alien threats in Cardiff and Wales (where both Doctor Who and Torchwood are filmed), and having lots of sexy adventures in ways that The X-Files could only dream about (or dread). They’re “separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations,” and, at times, quite frankly a bunch of cry babies.

And that brings us up to the new miniseries, “Children Of Earth.” A quick Primer on everything Torchwood prior to and including the new miniseries:

— Gwen Cooper, played by Eve Myles, is our audience surrogate introduction to the world of Torchwood, a working class Cardiff cop recruited to the team and finding herself having to balance the crazy world of alien fighting against her home life with her lovable curmudgeonly husband, Rhys.

— Captain Jack can’t die. Sorry, forgot to mention that. Well, he can die, but due to a thing that happened with a thing, whenever he does die, he comes back to life just a moment later, and he does so in a very melodramatic, heavy gasp for air wherever his body lays.

— In contrast, there’s a certain anything can happen vibe that causes the show to occasionally kill of it’s main characters, just to keep you guessing, and to give more opportunity for…

— Crying. I mentioned this before, but with this show, and with some of these characters, it bears repeating.

— The continued parallels to the Buffy spinoff, Angel: the immortal occasionally brooding dark haired lead who can’t die and pines after the title character of the original show in a near constant state of fan service, the darkness, the bizarre fascination with standing on pieces of architecture watching the city sleep, the second episode being about a sex monster on the prowl in the dating scene, and a attention-stealing and faith-restoring set of appearances by James Marsters, who here plays Capt. John Hart, Capt. Jack’s former partner in many ways from the Time Agency and the future, fresh out of murder rehab and here to make Jack’s life a living hell.

— The theme song sounds like one of those preprogrammed into your phone.

— The post-watershed sex is out of this world crazy. In the first season alone, every single main character has not only at least one same sex encounter, but more than a few bump and grinds with aliens. It’s nice in that the sexuality is fluid and explored and Captain Jack isn’t just bisexual, he’s omnisexual. He represents something starkly real in that ultimately, he’ll fuck anything, regardless if it has a penis, a vagina, or alien tentacles. So perhaps the heroic Captain Jack has become quite the role model, not just for gay and bisexual viewers, but for anyone, because let’s face it, you’d at least consider fucking an alien, wouldn’t you?

no, we don't expect you to fuck an alien dressed like that

— Expletives. You have to be jealous that characters on British shows can drop the occasional cathartic “Fuck!” on regular TV whenever they feel like it.

— Crying. I mentioned this before, but with this show, and with some of these characters, it bears repeating.

— Lost’s Charles Widmore. Sure, he can’t find the Island, but on Torchwood he doesn’t need to since he’s marketing an evil cure for AIDS and Cancer using alien bugs that eat people. All of which leads into the show’s main problem, the general…

alien hunter casual

— Mediocrity. Of purpose, of character, of intent, worst of all. Hey, I didn’t say that this was a great show. It’s actually really choppy at best. But it’s guilty pleasure viewing, definitely. Odd curiosity, certainly. Hell, television like this was is exactly why we have Mighty Big TV/Television Without Pity.

There’s one thing I always meant to ask Jack back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his, the man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world except sometimes he doesn’t. All those times in history when there was no sign of him. I wanted to know, why not? But I don’t need to ask anymore. I know the answer now. Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and then look away in shame.

— Gwen Cooper

“Children Of Earth” sees bombs put in people’s stomachs, ancient secrets naturally haunt the present, class war, naughty politicians trying to save face, spunky cute assassins, betrayals, aliens using kids as narcotics, Captain Jack testing the limits of his resurrection powers when he has to put himself back together after being blown into little pieces, lots and lots of crying, and course, the revelation that the nastiest, most vile creatures in the galaxy may actually turn out to be the humans themselves. And all of it rather epically done on a TV show budget that causes it to hint and tease rather effectively rather than blatantly reveal.

In fact, don't worry about the first two seasons of Torchwood right now. You can Netflix them later. And while you’re at it, ignore everything I’ve said here. Just go watch "Children Of Earth." It’s melodramatic, it’s out of this world silly at times, but it’s also breathless, exhilarating fun.

Marco Sparks is a contributor to This Recording. He last wrote in these pages about comic superheroes. His blog is here. He tumbls here.

"Het Zilte Nat" — Sylvester Anfang II (mp3)

"The Devil Always Shits In The Same Groves" — Sylvester Anfang II (mp3)

"Na Regen Komt Zondvloed" — Sylvester Anfang II (mp3)

Silvester Anfang is the Funeral Folk collective gathered in a free folk droneband. The band started as a three-piece of Per, Edgar and Hellvete, but now the line-up depends on who's available to record/perform. Together with Ignatius Van Kempenhof and PI666 (who now became a vulcanologist in Switserland) Silvester Anfang started searching for a sound that might be something called Pagan Belgopsych. The compositions are mostly non-musical offertories to worship their almighty overlord Brohll.

In Which There Is Always A Murder We Should Be Solving

There's a Murderer in the Building

by MARCO SPARKS

Two things I'm desperate to have happen before I die:

1. Find myself the reluctant amateur detective in a quaint real life murder mystery involving an eccentric cast of characters. I want to be the traveling detective a tad reluctant to get involved like Poirot, rather than the person giddy for each new homicide you encounter every place you go. That way lays madness and suddenly I'm Jessica Fletcher and with a body count rivaling some marquee diseases.

2. Find myself upper middle class rich at the very least, working in a creative field, probably living in New York, and enjoying sherry and decadent dessert with my equally rich friends from the arts after we've come back from plays and working on our novels. We'll complain about Wagner, talk about missed chances and what a mistake that last vacation with our ex-wives were (because those ex-wives were a mistake), contemplate opening a restaurant, and find ourselves bored and looking for excitement.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is both of these, in classic Woody Allen style, but also about a third thing: the death of excitement in a marriage.

Allen is Larry Lipton and in a grand reunion with his Annie Hall co-star, Diane Keaton is his wife, Carol. They’ve been together for a while, Larry’s a book editor, Carol’s currently unemployed and bored, especially with their son off to college. They humor each other, Larry dragging Carol to hockey games and Carol dragging Larry to the opera, which he later forces them to walk out of. "I can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know?" he tells his wife, "I start to get the urge to conquer Poland."

On their way home from one of these outings, they encounter their next door neighbors, the Houses, who invite them in for coffee. When you’re old and dying slowly in marriage, this is what you do: drag others into your misery for a short time and give them dessert and force your stamp collection upon them. The next night though, Mrs. House is dead, and Carol suspects foul play. Larry is comically nervously unconvinced, but Carol won’t let it pass. Murder! Right next door! It’s exciting and new, two things she’s desperate for in life at the moment, and Larry remains nonplussed at first.

Carol: I don't understand why you're not more fascinated with this! I mean, we could be living next door to a murderer, Larry.”

Larry: New York is a melting pot! I'm used to it!

Carol’s need for excitement in getting to the bottom of this mystery is fed by the couple’s friend, the recently divorced and wonderful Alan Alda, who’s willing to become her partner just in snooping and sleuthing, but in a possible restaurateuring venture as well. And perhaps more than that as he reminds her while on stakeout of a time years earlier when they could’ve cheated on their spouses together.

Is Carol interested in the advances of Alan Alda’s Ted? Probably not, but her growing closeness with him spurns Larry into action, desperate to stop the slowly growing rift in his marriage and join in on the mystery. And that’s when the film really takes off. People will tell you that this is a minor film, which isn’t inaccurate, but it’s also a treat for fans of the Allen catalogue. Some things to especially enjoy:

First and foremost, the behind the scenes story. The film was shot in summer of 1992, in the height of Allen’s breakup with Mia Farrow and the brutal custody battle that was fought afterward. You have to more than assume that is responsible for the theme of romantic deception and betrayal throughout the film.

At the last minute, Diane Keaton stepped into her role, which was originally written for Farrow and because of the timing and the complicated plot points, couldn’t be rewritten for her. It makes for fascinating viewing as the always perfect and electric Keaton makes Allen the straight man for the first half of the movie.

The second half, however, is not only an amazing madcap tour through Larry’s phobias as the couple discovers bodies and attempts to bluff a murderer, but it’s also a treat for mystery and noir fans as bodies are discovered along with dopplegangers and double crosses.

Of course, the movie is a love letter to New York (and if we couldn’t guess that, we’re told as much in the opening musical number, Cole Porter’s "I Happen To Like New York"), but in some ways it’s an imaginary sequel to Annie Hall, not just with the reuniting of Keaton and Allen, but because Anhedonia, Hall’s original title, was originally intended to be a mystery, but those elements were later removed by Allen and co-screenwriter Marshall Brickman to be reused here.

Just as unshocking, this isn’t just a love letter to New York, it’s a love letter to cinema in general, combining Bergman with Wilder and not just referencing Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai, but literally forcing characters into a shootout in it.

We can blame this film for Zack Braff, who has his debut here in a brief scene as Larry and Carol’s son whose away at college. Oh, if only he stayed at college. There’s also blink and you’ll miss them short appearances by Joy Behar and Aida Tuturro.

Speaking of tragically short appearances: Anjelica Huston is delightful here as the sexy, confident author whose Allen’s Larry is the book editor for. Her character is witty and tuned in that, even though she’s not involved in nearly enough of the action in her handful of scenes, she can still not only figure out what’s going in this mystery plot, but explain it to the other characters not once but twice.

In a nice throwaway gag, the book of Huston’s that Allen’s character is editing is called Comfort Zones. A thing like that in a Woody Allen movie will never stop being hilarious to me.

And... Alan Alda again. Perfectly sleazy. I only wish I could get away with half of his lazy lothario charm at my age. And yet, as sleazy as you suspect he is or would like to be, he comes off as harmless, getting along more perfectly in a platonic way with the women in the cast rather than the men. Even as I type that, I’m just that much closer to pronouncing this case closed and moving to New York and write plays and retire into a life as an Alan Alda-esque gadabout.

All that said, this movie makes me think that maybe my life is boring. Yours too, probably. Look at us, we’re sitting here talking about filmmakers and actors and next door there’s probably somebody being killed. There’s probably a mystery being hatched just waiting for nosy neighbors to come get to the bottom of it.

Marco Sparks is a contributor to This Recording. This is his first appearance in these pages. His blog is here, and his tumblr is here.

“For Our Elegant Caste (acoustic)” - Of Montreal (mp3)

"For Our Elegant Caste (depressed buttons remix)" - Of Montreal (mp3)

"For Our Elegant Caste" - Of Montreal (mp3)